You can find a killer standing in any coffee shop of Basra, discussing prices of a life as if he was buying a piece of meat.'
You might have recently heard the story about the young Iraqi woman whose father suffocated and hacked her body....he was subsequently congratulated by the local gendarmes for the crime. The crime?
Rand Abdel-Qader was killed after her family discovered that she had formed a friendship with a 22-year-old British infantryman whom she knew as Paul.
The woman's mother then filed for divorce and fled, only to be murdered herself weeks later.
A couple of weeks ago, a group of teenage girls in Iraq were attacked in a vicious manner, as a man sprayed acid into their eyes and faces. Their crime was happening to stop to speak to a male friend.
Please - tell me again why we have now let over 4200 American servicepersons die to help stabilize this country?
Honour killings in Iraq have long been commonplace and are freely discussed, apparently in high society.
The Guardian UK story today:
Authorities in the southern Iraqi city of Basra have admitted they are powerless to prevent 'honour killings' in the city following a 70 per cent increase in religious murders during the past year.
There has been no improvement in conviction rates for these killings. So far this year, 81 women in the city have been murdered for allegedly bringing shame on their families. Only five people have been convicted.
During 2007 the Basra security committee recorded 47 'honour killings' and three convictions. One lawyer in the city described how police were actively protecting perpetrators and said that a woman in Basra could now be murdered by hired hitmen for as little as $100 (£65).
The figures come despite international outrage which followed The Observer's coverage of the death of 17-year-old Rand Abdel-Qader, who was murdered by her father last April in an 'honour killing' after falling in love with a British soldier in Basra. The 4,000 British troops stationed in the city since the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 withdrew to the airport last September.
When coalition forces leave Iraq...even though they have little control over fanatical religious acts that result in the killing and mutilation of one's own family members....what then? US officials are striving to make inroads, but it's more like spitting into the wind...as Major General John Kelly, the top ranking Marine in Iraq, told the LA Times
The time has come, Kelly said, for the Anbaris to provide for themselves without U.S. help. "We need to break the dependency," he said.
Kelly and his commanders are also trying to convince some Anbaris that the ancient system of tribal justice is counterproductive in the modern world. It could undercut efforts to attract outside investment needed to create jobs and reduce a dangerously high unemployment rate among the young, they say.
"You tell these guys, 'You've got to get away from these revenge killings and honor killings,' " Malay said.
Good luck with that Major General. There's a tremendous amount of respect for religious tradition that would allow a human being to kill his own daughter for talking to another man. Or less.....
At first glance Shawbo Ali Rauf appears to be slumbering on the grass, her pale brown curls framing her face, her summer skirt spread about her. But the awkward position of her limbs and the splattered blood reveal the true horror of the scene.
The 19-year-old Iraqi was, according to her father, murdered by her own in-laws, who took her to a picnic area in Dokan and shot her seven times. Her crime was to have an unknown number on her mobile phone. Her "honour killing" is just one in a grotesque series emerging from Iraq, where activists speak of a "genocide" against women in the name of religion.
The Iraqi government is no help.
The new Iraqi constitution, ... is a mass of confusing contradictions. While it states that men and women are equal under law it also decrees that sharia law – which considers one male witness worth two females – must be observed. The days when women could hold down key jobs or enjoy any freedom of movement are long gone. The fundamentalists have sent out too many chilling messages. In Mosul two years ago, eight women were beheaded in a terror campaign.
We can only publicize these kinds of horrors in the hope that world opinion will modify behaviors. I'm quite certain we'll be reading stories like these for some time to come.
In August last year, the body of 11-year-old Sara Jaffar Nimat was found in Khanaqin, Kurdistan, after she had been stoned and burnt to death. Earlier this month, two brothers and a sister were kidnapped from their home near Kirkuk by gunmen in police uniforms. The brothers were beaten to death and the woman left in a critical condition after being informed that she must obey the rules of an "Islamic state". One week ago, a journalist, Begard Huseein, was murdered in her home in Arbil, northern Iraq. Her husband, Mohammed Mustafa, stabbed her because she was in love with another man, according to local reports.